To download the observatory (pdf)

The data relating to the sales turnover and the traffic are published within the “Telecommunications Observatory in France”.

The references in the tables refer to the following notes:

(1) Metropolitan mobile network operators (MNOs): Orange France, Société Française du Radiotéléphone (SFR) and Bouygues Telecom; and active MVNOs controlled by network operators and counted as such: Debitel, Ten,  Neuf Cegetel, Mobisud. Metropolitan MVNOs independent of mobile operators and active during the quarter: Afone, Auchan Télécom, Bazile Telecom, Carrefour mobile, Coriolis Telecom, E-plus, France Telecom,  NRJ Mobile, Numéricable, Omer Telecom, Prixtel, SIM +, Sisteer, Transatel and Zero forfait. Overseas mobile network operators: Orange Caraïbe, subsidiary of Orange France; Orange Réunion, subsidiary of Orange France; Société Réunionnaise du Radiotéléphone (SRR), including under the Mayotte Télécom Mobile brand in Mayotte, subsidiary of SFR; Digicel AFG; SAS SPM, subsidiary of Orange Caraïbe in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon; Dauphin Telecom; Outremer Telecom and UTS Caraïbe.

(2) A client is considered to be any user of a mobile service provided by an operator (MNO or MVNO) and having a mobile line registered with an operator's Home Location Register (HLR) at the date in question. Due to misuse of language, the term "client" also refers to the mobile line itself. So, for business clients, each line is considered a client. Post-paid clients are those whose service is invoiced regularly (packages, metered offers, blocked accounts, etc.). By default, any non-post-paying client is considered to be a pre-paying client.

(3) Gross sales are the operator’s clients at the end of the quarter which are registered with the HLR during the quarter. They exclude migrations: pre-paid to post-paid migration corresponds to clients asking their operator to replace their pre-paid offer in force at the beginning of the quarter with a post-paid offer; conversely, post-paid to pre-paid migration corresponds to clients asking their operator to replace their post-paid offer in force at the beginning of the quarter with a pre-paid offer.

(4) Net growth data for the quarter are calculated as the difference in the number of clients between the beginning and end of the quarter. Year-on-year growth is obtained by comparing the numbers of clients of two ends of quarters one year apart to the end of the first quarter in question.

(5) The penetration rate is obtained by dividing the total number of clients or the number of "active" clients by the population in question. The MIM publication of December 2006 updated the populations resulting from INSEE’s ten-year census of 1st January 1999. From now on, the reference population is that published by INSEE on 1st January of the year in question, with no retroactive updating. On 1st January of year N, INSEE publishes its population estimates for 1st January of the year N-1. So, the reference population for 2010, taken from the estimates published on 1st January 2010 (and therefore on 1st January 2009), is a Metropolitan population of 62 469 000, to which are added a population of 2 088 800 for the DOM, broken down as 1 079 000 inhabitants for the Antilles-Guyana area and 1 003 500 for the Réunion area.

(6) A client under a commitment contract is any client having taken out or renewed a contract (out of all or part of the contracts related to mobile service) for a minimum period not having expired at the date in question. A client not under commitment contract is any client not having a contract.

(7) The number of active clients equals all post-paid clients or pre-paid clients having made or received a telephone call, whether free or paid, during the past three months (not including SMS).

(8) A client’s registration region is that of the Metropolitan administrative region in which the client was registered from the operator’s point of view. For post-paid clients, this is the region of the invoicing address.

(9) The market share of MVNOs in gross post-paid sales is the ratio as a percentage of gross sales made by the MVNOs during the quarter to total post-paid gross for the same quarter. The market share of MVNOs in gross pre-paid sales is the ratio as a percentage of gross pre-paid sales made by the MVNOs during the quarter to total gross pre-paid sales for the same quarter.

(10) The quarterly post-paid cancellation rate is the ratio of post-paid cancellations during the quarter to the average number of post-paid clients during the period ( ½  sum of post-paid numbers at the beginning and end of the quarter).  The quarterly pre-paid cancellation rate is the ratio between pre-paid cancellations during the quarter and the average number of pre-paid clients during the period ( ½  sum of pre-paid clients at the beginning and end of the quarter). Note that a cancellation is defined as an operator’s client at the beginning of the quarter whose registration in the HLR was deleted during the quarter. Modifications to the registration in the HLR are not cancellations. So, this definition does not cover changes in offers within a line, or pre- to post-paid migrations or post- to pre-paid migrations, or service suspensions.

(11) The number of ported numbers is calculated as half of the volume of numbers of “in” porting and “out" porting done by all operators. “In” porting is considered to be an effective porting from the receiving operator’s point of view. “Out” porting is an effective porting from the donor operator’s point of view.

(12) The active number of multimedia clients is defined as all clients having used a multimedia service such as Internet mobile (Wap, I-Mode, Vodafone live, Orange World, etc.) at least once during the past month or, having sent an MMS or mobile e-mail (this does not include SMS), regardless of the support technology (CSD, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, etc.).